God of War is a visual showcase on PS4, but frame-rate will drop below 30fps – report

God of War is one of the best looking games on PS4, whether you’r using the base model or the more powerful Pro.

God of War’s visual triumphs are clear to anyone, it’s only when you look at performance that things can turn a bit disappointing. According to Digital Foundry’s new report, the game pushes both consoles to their limit.

Visual features are stacked across each version. Physically-based rendering helps materials like cloth, leather and fur look realistic. Tessellation is used to good effect, particularly in the snow textures. Snow deforms realistically, and Kratos as well as enemies can dynamically create their own paths within it.

What’s impressive here is that, with the exception of ambient occlusion, the visual presentation is near identical on both consoles. The power of the PS4 Pro is being used to push the resolution for the most part.

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And that it does. God of War uses checkerboard rendering to achieve a 4K resolution on PS4 Pro. The site notes that the effect isn’t noticeable in motion, and ends up looking better than games with native 1440/1600p resolutions, even if it’s not native 4K.

1080p is the resolution on the base PS4, and both consoles target 30fps. To that end, PS4 Pro keeps to the target for the most part, with some drops in hectic and effects-heavy battles. It’s not perfect, but nothing too distracting, according to the report.

PS4 Pro also gets performance mode, which unlocks the frame-rate and locks the resolution to 1080p. The frame-rate likewise jumps between 40fps to around 60fps, which causes judder.

On a regular PS4, you only get one mode targeting 30fps. The frame-rate does drop below 30fps in certain scenes, turning in a similar performance to PS4 Pro’s resolution mode.